Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/236

 Instead of trying to finish a distance in ten hours, or instead of taking twenty hours, it may be agreed by compromise that the journey may occupy fifteen hours. But if one wants to go North and another West, there is no meaning in saying that as a compromise we should go one mile North and the next mile West. There can be no compromise in regard to the direction to which we want to turn our face. Mr. Gandhi could not be oblivious to compromise on lines that fetter further progress and muzzle us in regard to future demands. There are certain positions in politics which call for from the leaders almost an oath not to depart from an irreducible minimum of mental rectitude, and Mr. Gandhi is looked up to very rightly as a man of rectitude all in all. In Mr. Tilak the country has had a patriot first and foremost, and a politician next, during a long time when the country has had too many politicians without patriotism. In Mr. Gandhi, on the other hand, we have more than a patriot, an apostle to whom the prophets of the world now worshipped as the founders of the creeds known by their names, might repair to catch glimpses of real human greatness even in so